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“Google Stalking” Now Do it For Real
Over at Boing Boing they posted a story of a reader who was concerned that the new Google Map Street View allowed the world to see her home and even her cat sitting in the apartment on the couch.
While the first reaction is “whoa cool!” I think a second one is “Oooh this is gonna be bad.”
It is amazing to think about the ability to find a map to a meeting place and not only be able to see the shapes of the buildings on the map… but to be able to literally zoom in to the street view and look around the area to recognize it later. But I wonder what sort of liabilities this new technology is opening up….
What if your cat was being stalked?
What if you didn’t want people to know you take out the trash?
What if you don’t want people to know you visit a seedy Strip-Joint?
What if you don’t want your vehicle & license plate known to the world?
What if you don’t want the world watching you sun-bathe?
For more of these map findings check out Wired’s Request for Urban Street Sightings: Submit and Vote on the Best Urban Images
May 30th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Super creepy.
There will be an out lash against Google and then it will settle down and people will find it useful. Thats when they will roll out the images of inside your house. And the cycle starts again.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
This is not uber
May 31st, 2007 at 2:35 am
No more need for baby sitters kids. I’ll just google map your ass and if you’ve got friends over you are grounded.
I can see it now.
May 31st, 2007 at 3:54 am
Whoa scary! Fortunately, Street View hasn’t come to the UK yet!
May 31st, 2007 at 4:27 am
Google continues to amaze me. I second Wes Bos in saying that people will soon forget the privacy issues.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:06 am
Definitely weird stuff… have a couple of friends who spend quite a bit of their time doing just that..
June 1st, 2007 at 3:49 pm
This is extremely uncool for people who are trying to avoid having abusive exes know where they live. Not to mention folks in witness protection.
June 3rd, 2007 at 6:01 am
People can (and undoubtedly will) abuse this; however, think of the information we can gather with this. Think of how educational this could be. I am reluctant to think we should restrict much, if any, of this, because there have been times in the past where we have feared a new form of data/medicine/idea, but now use it every day. Things and ideas are changing. We have to learn to adapt with that and create laws to protect people, where needed.
And on that note, I’d like to point out the unlikelihood of your being one of the people seen clearly on Google Maps (”clearly” being the keyword here). Then, beyond that, a abusive ex (to refer to Sapphire’s remark) would have to know where to look to even begin. The chances of both things being spot on for someone to find you and abuse you personally are quite slim. In that regard, there’s little more risk than if the person followed you on foot or via car. In fact, it’s less of a risk, as Google doesn’t update imagery that often. It’s not real-time, so…
I think it can be cool. It’ll take some getting used to, but it’s cool.
June 6th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Its quite funny how many people concerned about not existing privacy issues… If you don’t want the world watching you sun-bathe, than don’t do it on public domain! Its realy that simple… The girls on that picture dont seem to be too concerned about the people passing by, and that someone might notice them half naked… So why would they care about google’s street view? The possibilities that someone will abuse them trough an outdated image are much lower than a possible real life abusement.
By the way I dont even have worlds to describe the horror of being watched while I am takeing out the trash…
I know, there are many people who will hit the front page of some magazines with that kind of action, but they are already on hidding from paparazis…
June 6th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
takeing=taking…
sorry for the other mistakes also